The nearly forgotten 40 year-old BBC mini-series, ‘Shoulder to Shoulder’ reminds us why the

[niyad]

The nearly forgotten 40 year-old BBC mini-series, ‘Shoulder to Shoulder’ reminds us why the struggle for gender equality still matters



lA new movie documenting the struggle for women’s emancipation is a rarity; the suffragette movement is hardly ever dramatized for television. Shoulder to Shoulder, a BBC mini-series which is celebrating its fortieth anniversary, is the last time a story about the historic political struggle aired on TV. But why is the series buried in the BBC archive? Janet McCabe and Vicky Ball write that remembering this series is not only about reclaiming stories about the feminist struggle, but also about who has the power to tell them.

. . . . .
2014 marks the fortieth anniversary of the BBC mini-series, Shoulder to Shoulder, which focused on the activities of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), founded by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters, Christabel and Sylvia (1898-1918). It consisted of six specially written plays and it came about through the collaboration of three women: the actress Georgia Brown, filmmaker and feminist Midge Mackenzie and TV producer Verity Lambert. Its importance as a landmark BBC drama documenting the history of feminism and the emergent public voice of women is unquestioned. That said, the series seldom gets repeated and has never been released on DVD. This neglect prompts us to ask: why is such a politically important drama about women’s history still buried deep in the BBC archive?

It is well known that Emmeline Pankhurst was alive to the importance of capturing the media to help shape her political message; and some of the WSPU’s preoccupations—with the media, penal reform and direct action—chimed in with Britain in the early 1970s. The IRA bombing campaign (with the Price Sisters on hunger strike in Holloway prison—and forcibly fed), industrial strife and economic crisis meant that the series carried more than a whiff of controversy.

But maybe it was its feminism that lay at the heart of why Shoulder to Shoulder has been forgotten then and why we should remember it now. At the cast and crew reunion held at Birkbeck recently, both Siân Phillips and Angela Down, who play Emmeline and Sylvia Pankhurst respectively, admitted to knowing little about these women before making the series. While Phillips was politically active and involved in the trade union movement, she had no formal education about the Suffragettes.
She wasn’t alone. Midge Mackenzie spoke and wrote often of how the project grew out of her experience of filming the Golden Jubilee of Women’s Suffrage in 1968, when she discovered the story of how women won the right to vote had been “almost successfully erased from the history books. The women who fought for the vote had vanished from our history. Their writings were long since out of print and their newspapers buried in archives”. In good documentary fashion Mackenzie filled her book, which one feels was a response to the betrayal she somehow felt at having men write the TV series, with women’s voices—original experiences as expressed in the words of those taking part, from diaries, letters, memoirs, speeches, as well as newspaper reports and the Suffragettes own publications, Votes for Women and The Suffragette.

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http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/why-remember-shoulder-to-shoulder/

[shenmue]

1. I want to see it

[niyad]

4. I just learned today that it is on youtube:

[shenmue]

7. Yes!

Thank you!

[marym625]

2. k&r

[mwooldri]

3. At least it didn't get wiped.

It wasn't until the late 1970's that the BBC had a proper archiving policy of TV shows. Plenty got wiped out when the video tape was re-used. That they have had a screening is a good thing. I'd be interested in seeing it. If enough people in the UK ask the BBC to air the show on BBC Four, then it might get an airing. Hopefully if it gets aired (from a technical point of view), it is re-broadcast in its original 4:3 aspect format, not the 16 that Auntie Beeb wants to do with everything.

[niyad]

5. available on youtube:

[niyad]

6. . . .

[CTyankee]

8. I loved this show and watched it every week. Wonderful...

[niyad]

10. at least we can see it again on youtube! now that I know this, will definitely see it again!

[Throckmorton]

9. My god, 40 years.

I watched it on Masterpiece Theater as a kid, I must have been 13 when they showed it here.

I still remember the theme song.

[niyad]

11. I know what you mean--I can still hear that song.